PGP, Inc.--What were they thinking?

[Tim May]

At 1:45 PM -0700 10/22/97, Anonymous wrote:
>>Agreed. What amazes me is how PGP, Inc. would decide this should be a core
>>part of their company. "PGP for Business," indeed. What were they thinking?
>
>Um, maybe that they wanted to stay in business?

This is a truism, that businesses want to stay in business. (And thrive, etc.)

The interesting question is whether this action will help them.

Why it may not is what we're talking about.

For example, if PGP loses its "little guy fighting the system" image, and
the company is seen as a major supplier of snoopware and GMR systems, it
will have squandered the good will which led many of us to support PGP.

And it's by no means clear that corporations will pay enough for PGP for
Business if this good will has been squandered.

The free status of most versions of PGP is indeed an impediment to PGP
making a profit.  That's an unchangeable situation. Lots of copies of PGP
are already out there, and lots more are available from many sites.

The "commercial use" vs. "personal use" dichotomy is largely unenforceable.
If Joe Employee uses PGP 2.6 or even 5.0 for his messages, PGP, Inc. will
have a very hard time proving in court that Joe or his employer can be held
liable for this use (at most, maybe Joe will have to pay $50 or so...and
probably not even that, as PGP 5.0 is not serialized (so far as I can find)
and records aren't kept...Joe can just claim he did in fact buy it, blah
blah).

This means PGP, Inc. faces a Netscape-like battle in finding revenue sources.

Will they succeed?

Will people like us continue to give PGP, Inc. the good will it has enjoyed?

Stay tuned.

--Tim May



The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
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